


For a Father's Love

by baconhorcrux



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Nogitsune Stiles, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 17:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4488351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baconhorcrux/pseuds/baconhorcrux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally getting my little ficlets moved to AO3. This one was written early on in the seasons when Stiles was possessed by the nogitsune, as a response to people speculating that he'd have an anchor in Scott or Derek to get him through, and I was like, "no, c'mon, it'd totally be his dad."</p>
            </blockquote>





	For a Father's Love

The best he can describe it, it’s like being trapped in a small, dark room. There’s limited space, just enough for him to take a couple steps, but not enough to really move, and he can feel the walls pulsing around him, as though any second they can close in even more, make the room tighter, suffocate him with their presence. He knows there’s a door, just there, but the handle’s locked and the wood’s sturdy, he can’t get it open no matter how hard he tries. The darkness is palpable; it’s not the darkness that comes from a lack of light, but something more than that. It’s a presence.

Stiles knows this isn’t real. He knows it, can feel it in his bones, in the way they don’t feel like anything at all, the mere idea of bones instead, but that doesn’t make it any easier to escape.

He spends countless time – minutes, hours, days – raging against the door, slamming his whole body into it with as much force as the limited space allows. He screams, and cries, and with every passing minute he feels himself getting weaker, tired. So tired.

**

There’s a window in the room, but the blinds are controlled from the outside. Sometimes it opens, and the room is bathed in the light of reality. He sees Scott, Isaac, Lydia. He sees the twin killers. He sees Melissa.

He sees his dad.

He hears the thing – the demon, the spirit, the fucking evil creature – possessing him speak, using his mouth, using his words and his memories to fool everyone, to trick his friends and family. And he can’t do a thing about it, just watches, screaming and pounding at the window, hoping desperately that they notice, that they look into this thing’s eyes and see him, trapped in these black, bottomless pupils.

**

It’s Derek who notices, funny enough. Funny because Stiles didn’t even know he was back, let alone part of the team again. The window opens to him, and speech echoes into the room in a strange, hollow way.

“You’re not Stiles,” Derek says, his eyes widening in fear even while his mouth sets in anger. Stiles can feel the way the thing forms his lips into a smirk.

“No, I’m really not.”

**

“Stiles, c’mon – come on, Stiles, I know you’re in there, you can do this. Stiles!” Scott’s screaming again, his voice warped in that familiar way that means his fang’s are out, but Stiles can’t see him, can’t look to make sure. The window’s gone, but he looks up from where he’s been curled up for who-knows-how-long, lifts his head from where it’s been buried in his arms, and tries to see him anyways. The desperation in his best friend’s voice, the near-hopelessness that almost matches Stiles’ own, gets his attention, lifting him from his self-pity.

“Stiles, you can do this. I know you’re in there, I know you can hear me! STILES.” His voice sounds choked, like he’s hurt, and Stiles slowly picks himself up, even as the thing that’s using his body taunts Scott.

“He’s not here anymore, little alpha. He can’t hear a damn thing.”

Not true, Stiles thinks, and rage picks up inside him at a slow boil. He pushes himself up on shaking arms, looks at where he knows the door to be. He thinks of Scott, he thinks of when they were kids playing together in the sandbox, all the trips to get ice cream they took, of the time they’ve spent cursing at each other while playing video games, and he slams into the door. He thinks of how Scott’s his brother, how he’d talked him down from suicide just weeks ago, how lost he’d felt at the idea of losing him, how he’d rather be dead than live in a world without his best friend. He pounds his fists against it, using the small surge of strength in his limbs to fight against this dark force, putting everything inside him to breaking down this wall. Somehow, he knows that if he could just break this down, if he could just get passed this obstacle, he’d have a chance. He’d have a chance.

But the door holds, not even creaking, and Scott’s voice gets further and further away. Stiles slams his forearms into the door one more time and then slinks down to his knees, fingers digging into the wood, and sobs.

**

“Stiles?” the voice comes through the darkness slowly, almost casually, like it’s swimming down to him. It rests against his shoulder, whispered into his ear. “Stiles?” That voice. He knows that voice. He’d know that voice anywhere, separate it out from any crowd.

Dad.

“Stiles, please,” his dad says, and oh, there’s desperation there. There’s breaking. There’s his dad, slowly dying from the loss of his son. Stiles chokes out a sob, pushing himself up from where he was lying, and staring bleakly into the darkness.

Dad.

The window opens, suddenly. Quicker than it ever has before, and bigger, too. He scrambles up, putting his hands to the window, pressing his whole body against it as he stares out. There’s his dad, standing there, in his uniform. Behind him is the pack, Scott and Isaac and Allison and Lydia, Derek, too, and yes, the twins, but he ignores them, all of them, just stares at his Dad, soaking in his face, all the wrinkles, old and new, the way his hair is messed like he’s been running his hands through it, the same way Stiles’ does when he’s frustrated. The bright, shiny badge over his chest, a new one, identical to the one the Darach had crushed, the one Stiles had used to anchor himself when he tried to find the nematon.

“Stiles, this isn’t you. I know this isn’t. Please, Stiles, come back,” his dad is saying, and Stiles can feel the thing pull his lip up in a sneer, can feel the way it’s readying for a fight. No. No. It can’t. It doesn’t get to do this, doesn’t get to hurt his dad, his dad has been through enough, he’s been through enough, do you hear me? Leave my dad alone!

“Please, son,” his dad continues, taking a step forward, and Stiles wants to scream at him, tell him to stop, because can’t he see this is dangerous? Can’t he see that Stiles isn’t in control here? He wants to scream, wants to yell and cry, tell his dad to run, to get away, but he can’t. He can’t. All he can do is stand there and watch as his dad looks at him like he’s losing him, looks at him like he used to look at Stiles’ mom, all those years ago, when things got real bad and she couldn’t leave the hospital anymore. His dad standing there and looking at Stiles like his son’s already gone.

Stiles leans against the window with a whole body tremble workings its way through him, making him feel electrified like he hasn’t since he first woke up in here, trapped in this dark place in his own mind. It’s like his nerves have suddenly come alive, burning through him in one wild rush of life. It scares him, and his legs wobble with it, his stomach clenching uncomfortably. But he keeps his feet. He keeps his feet.

Because he knows, he can’t do this to him. He can’t do this to his dad. He won’t be responsible for this, he won’t be the reason his dad looks out at the world with pain-ridden eyes, he won’t be why his dad opens a whiskey bottle and doesn’t put it down again until it’s empty, he will not be the reason his dad is broken. He will not.

“Come back to me, kid. I can’t – I can’t lose you, too, Stiles,” he hears his dad say, but he can no longer see him. The trembling is getting worse, and he thinks if he doesn’t do something soon, he might explode, shoot out through his mind like so much shrapnel.

He hears other things, too, roars and shouts, cries and pleas, but it’s his dad’s voice that keeps coming through, a strong, steady line to the outside world.

“I can’t lose you, too.”

And suddenly he’s yelling, too, he’s screaming, and he turns and pounds into the door with all the force he has in his body, in his mind. He slams into that door, that stupid fucking door that’s keeping him closed off, and for the first time, he feels it give, just a little, just enough. He backs up as much as he can, panting for breath, keeping his dad’s voice in his mind, and he surges forward again. And again. And again. Until he feels the wood start to break, until he feels the paneling give way, until he hears the snap of metal as the lock breaks away from the wood, until he runs at it and finds himself free-falling.

**

He opens his eyes to bright fluorescent lights, hissing at the pain and trying to lift his hands to cover his eyes. But he can’t, and when he looks down to see why, he finds himself held down by Scott, Isaac and Derek, checked by their werewolf strength. A strength that was nothing to the thing possessing him, but is everything now, so much he can’t even lift his arms a centimeter.

He looks at each of them in turn, eyes wide and breath panting like he just ran a mile, his whole body sore and tired. They all look afraid, but almost hopeful, like they’re not sure who they’re looking at but want to believe it’s him so bad. He wants to say something, do something to reassure them, but he can’t find the words. So instead he swallows, heavily, and looks up, past them, eyes seeking the only person in the room who really, truly matters, the only one for whom he was able to break through that door.

His dad’s standing there, close but far enough away to be safe, though Stiles can see the way his whole body is tense with the need to engulf his son in a bone-breaking hug. For a long moment, they just stare at each other, scared and uncertain.

“Stiles?” his dad says, finally breaking the silence, his face wet and lined with tears. And this does it, this breaks the silence in Stiles’ throat, and he lets out a choked sob, his whole face crumpling in fear and despair and guilt.

“Dad,” he says, and at the sound of his voice the others startle, not breaking their holds but loosening them. He doesn’t look at them, though, just keeps looking at his dad, at the only thing anchoring him in his body, because he can still feel it, still feel the demon in his head.

“Help me,” he says, sobbing freely now and not caring, not self-conscious even a little, because he thinks he gets to now, he thinks he has earned the right. He feels a steady pressure on his leg as his dad gives his knee a reassuring squeeze, like he used to when Stiles was a kid and just lost a game of T-Ball.

“We will, son,” his dad says, voice tight but cop-sure. “We will.”


End file.
